Converting patterns to 3-D

Irish · #1 08-30-2007, 04:06 PM

Well, I am just about finished with the summer shop cleaning ... Woooo! As a few of you may know Mike and I are discussing moving after 30 years in the same house. I have spent this summer getting ready ... just in case ... by cleaning. I won't even go into what I have found and what I have thrown away except to say that I did sacrifice my dust bunny collection ... sigh!

In this mornings mystery box that I had to go through, sort out, throw out or keep I came across some sketches I had done years ago while trying to explain to someone how to translate a 2-D pattern into a 3-D pattern.

Instead of stuffing them back into the box I thought I would throw them on the scanner and share them here in case someone could use the ideas.

susan_1 is my rough sketch of a little old carver in a 'keep on truckin' type of pose. When I start any pattern I do my sketches very lose with lots and lots of lines for each area. Plus I let the line work in one area flow through another area.

susan_3 I have clean up the drawing and translated it into a simple line drawing. Because I use so many lines in the drawing stage I have more choice as to which lines I want to keep and which I discard. We'll get back to susan_2 at the end of this and why there are circles in his joints

susan_4 I have a very basic side view of my carver. Now I want to establish guide lines working from this side view that I will use in the placement of each element in the frontal view. I mark the top and bottom edges of all major areas in the side view ... the top of his nose and the bottom of his nose, the top of his knee and the bottom of his knee. It's not shown here but I do this guide marking on both sides of the side view pattern. So there will be guide lines where the top of his fanny and the bottom of his fanny area, the top edge of his hair and the bottom edge of his hair.

Susan

Irish · #2 08-30-2007, 04:08 PM

susan_6 The human body is a series of connecting or overlapping ovals. Clothing and other non-human elements can be geometric shapes as triangles or squares. With the guidelines established I am ready to mark the ovals for each area. The first two areas of the body that I do are the head and the belly. Both of these areas are usually as wide from the front as they are from the side. So the first two shapes are large circles. The knees are circular as well and easy to put into place.

The upper and lower arm are long ovals, notice that they overlap at the elbow. The upper leg is often tear drop shapes with a long narrow oval for the lower leg. His beard is a large wide tear drop with the point at the center of his chest. Now the bottom of the hair and the bottom of the mustache happen to hit at the same guideline so this area became one big oval.

susan_9 I'm ready to start the second drawing for the frontal view using the ovals and circles as my guides. You can see the guideline oval drawing in blue with the pencil drawing laid over it in gray. Again, I use lots of free flowing lines that I can reduce later in the pattern stage.

susan_10 And here is the frontal view completed as a line pattern.

Susan

Irish · #3 08-30-2007, 04:09 PM

Let's go back for a moment and look at the guideline work again in susan_6 and compare that to the finished line drawing in susan_10. When you create a different view pattern you need to include the hints of movement that the original pattern gives you. Remember I said this little dude had a 'keep on truckin' style of movement. That means he is in the process or action of walking with his weight on his front leg and just about to swing his back leg forward. That means that his hips would not be even ... he is in the action of shifting his weight from one leg to another. So in the final frontal pattern I need to include that shift of weight in the hip area. I did that by keeping his back leg very straight from the foot to the hip which then thrusts his front leg hip out and away from his body.

The easiest way to determine what movement a pattern might need in translating it from a side view to a frontal view is to head to the bathroom. Get a hand mirror, stand in front of the full length mirror and strike the pose! Now you can twist and turn while using the hand mirror to see your reflection in the full length mirror. This lets you catch those shifts of weight in the hip areas and which leg is straight and which is bend in towards or away from the body.

Changing the posture of your figure is easy to do when you are working with the side view pattern. In susan_2 I am about to change where the arm lies in the pattern. I first mark a circle or dot at each joint of the arm ... shoulder-elbow-wrist. These circles are where the movement comes. The lines between the dots establishes how long the bone is within each arm section. In a side view pattern you can move the lower arm at the elbow but you don't want to shorten or lengthen the bone in that lower arm! Notice in susan_11 how that arm has been moved into four new positions all working form the shoulder.

I can rearrange the figures position using any joint ... notice that I have the legs marked in the sample image but I could also have done the neck and head.

Susan

(Edit notes: OOOPS! Someone was nice enough to let me know that I forgot to upload one of the drawings ... Sorry.)

Irish · #4 08-30-2007, 04:17 PM

Thanks for letting me share this ... I just hated to stuff it back into a box and lose it for another 5 years when maybe one person out there might be able to use it.

Susan

(Back to chasing Dust Bunnies that escaped.)